A friend of a friend of mine is a frequent story-teller (ie. frequent liar) ... and the other day she told a new story about having a minor heart attack that her doctors told her was due a viral infection ...

Subesquently, her doctor informed her that she has a congenital heart defect, and the viral infection had further damaged her heart so badly that she will need a heart transplant to live beyond 2 years.

I'm not a medical-person, but the story just sounds waaay to "far-fetched" to be true.

So, I was wondering if any of you could think of an instance in which a viral infection could cause severe and substantial damage to the heart?

My father was told the same thing. He is young, mid forties, healthy, good eater, and had a heart attack out of no where. He was told by one of his doctors that it resulted back to dental care. He had many dental problems and had many surgeries, and the doctor told him he could have gotten a bacteria or virus from them w/o knowing it, this resulting in his heart attack.

Oh yeah, myocarditis. Anything that inflames the heart like a Coxsackie virus can result in chronic heart failure or dilated cardiomyopathy; the former of which is a serious problem, the latter which can potentially be a problem. About the transplant, I don't know, but it could very well be true with for a congenital heart defect.

It isn't so much a virus that "only" targets the heart, but you can get viruses (and bacteria) that have little effect. People can have Coxsackie virus, for instance, and have no or minimal "regular" symptoms from it, but have it affect their heart.

I've read about this with S. aureus, which of course is a bacterium, not virus. Unless I am mistaken, heart attack can be caused by 'molecular minicry', where the antibodies produced to attack the S. aureus infection also attack the heart valves.